Chevron puts downtown tower on hold

Less than six months after announcing plans to build a 50-story office tower downtown and creating what it called an “urban campus” for its growing Houston workforce, Chevron Corp. said those plans are now on hold as the company focuses its resources elsewhere.

“Chevron continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and operating cash flow, but the company is in a unique, capitally-intensive period that will drive peer-leading production and value growth,” spokesman Justin Higgs said Thursday.

Higgs said Chevron is still committed to building the tower, as well as a few other real estate projects it had planned around the country that are also being suspended. A large office building project in Midland is moving forward.

The company does not expect to make a decision on when the project could resume until after 2014, Higgs said. Delaying the building, he added, will not affect previously announced employee relocations into Houston.

“We expect our employee presence to continue to grow,” Higgs said.

In July, Chevron announced the project: a 1.7-million-square-foot tower, designed by the HOK architecture firm, that would join Chevron’s two other downtown buildings to form a campus.

The new building, which would be large enough to house some 4,200 workers, was set to break ground in the second quarter of 2014 and open by the end of 2016. The building site at 1600 Louisiana St. at Pease is property that used to house the old YMCA building on the southern end of downtown.

Chevron occupies 1500 Louisiana and 1400 Smith. It said the expanded campus would have indoor and outdoor common areas, dining facilities, a fitness center and training and conference rooms. Plans called for the new building to be connected to 1500 Louisiana on the lower levels.

The San Ramon, Calif.-based company, which owns its two downtown buildings, bought the site for the tower about two years ago. Earlier this year, Chevron said the building would allow the company to consolidate workers from nearby space the company has been leasing.

For its economic contribution, the company was set to reap a $12 million gift from the Texas Enterprise Fund, as well as $2.7 million property tax abatement from the city.